The Gregory Legacy, Chapter 43

Welcome to the long-awaited Jungle Adventures chapter. Awaited by whom? Me, at least! Maybe you too. Let's find out. Last chapter saw teenage heiress Eleanor working on her Serial Romantic aspiration, younger sis Taylor and Simstagram-star puppy Nova both growing into their next life stages, and finally the girls shipped off to Selvadorada for an exciting cliffhanger a meek teaser. And that's where we'll pick up today . . . 

 Taylor: "Well, it looks like this is the place. Two bed, two bath. Two of us will have to share, I guess, but it seems like a good home base."
Eleanor: "It's so romantic here in this little grove. I should bring someone here."
Eileen: "Maybe not while we're on sister time, yeah, Ellie?"
Eleanor: "Someday, romantic aura house, you will assist me . . ."
 

The girls head off to the Cantina for supplies and sustenance. While Eleanor forages and Taylor gathers intel, Eileen is a little concerned, though.
Eileen: "What is that?"
Eleanor: "Fish tacos. So good."
Eileen: "Where did you get fish tacos? There's no refrigerators here."
Eleanor: "The bartender got them from under the bar. They're probably fine."
Eileen: "Let me just repeat that back to you."
Eleanor: "No need; I'm done now. We'll just let my gut bacteria sort it out." 
 

And after someone FINALLY deigned to sell us a single machete (like a day later after the first pic) it's off to adventure in the jungle.
 
Eileen: "Sis, there are a lot of danger signs. I'm not sure if we should take this path." 
 

Eleanor: "It's fine. I survived Fish Taco 2k18 and I'll survive this too!"
 
Taylor: "Why am I not in any of these pictures?" 
 

 

 

There's Taylor! The jungle did its best to make sure we didn't survive, but while we were waiting for a machete, we had picked up a lot of handy dandy other supplies, so the girls made it out of their scrapes safely. 

Taylor: "This is dull, tedious, thankless work. Like trying to converse with Eleanor."
Eleanor: "I heard that! More trowel, less yapping!"

The girls are still getting along . . . kind of. Seriously, though, digging for artifacts takes forever.

 They finally made it to the bridge.

Taylor: "Yeah, it's pretty, I guess."
Eileen: "It's nice."
Eleanor: "The romantic aspect of this place is lost on you two, I see. Why are there no teen males in Selvadorada? Was I supposed to pack some with me?"
Taylor: "Well, I'm pretty sure that would have ruined the "sisters only" part of the "sister trip" that Mom and Dad paid for, so maybe not."
Eleanor: "What a tragedy."

And finally they made it to a temple as night fell.

Eleanor: "I am adequately impressed. You can tell by the way I am emoting with my face." 

Eleanor did seem to dig checking out the artifacts, monuments, and traps, though. Something about it finally sparked something in her, and she began to understand the importance of the trip. 

I didn't say she was good at it, however. 

In fact, she was kind of . . . not. After being frightened, she made some good faith attempts to converse with the temple guardian.

Eleanor: "Hey, that 'bone' joke was in perfectly good taste!"
Temple Guardian: "Well, I never!"
Taylor: "I want to burn my ears." 

Here's all three girls working in basically the same chamber to get all the artifacts and disable that lightening trap. They made it to the end of the temple, with the result being the cover image for this chapter. 

Then it was on to the Omiscan Royal Baths, which are really quite lovely. They did not skimp on the visuals in this GP. 

There Taylor and Eleanor were able to spend some quiet minutes in each other's company without trading barbs. Also, can we appreciate how lovely Taylor looks in her flowing green locks when she's not impersonating Cousin Nature, the punk-wannabe 15-year-old counterpart to Mother Nature?

Taylor: "What . . . what's happening to me?"
Eleanor: "The little sun? Isn't that the blessing you got in the temple?"
Taylor: "No, not that. I just suddenly felt the urge to change into a brand new outfit. It's just so hot that I decided to abandon my carefully-planned-and-argued-for adventuring outfit of sensible pants and boots with shorts and sandals." 

Taylor: "This is weird, right?"
Eileen: "No, this is summer."
Eleanor: "Yeah, it's always been like this."
Taylor: ". . ."
Eileen: "Okay, yeah, what the heck just happened?"

Seasons! 

Eleanor: "What was that about needing pants and boots again, Tay?"
Eileen: "Shh, we're photosynthesizing."
Eleanor: "Eileen, I don't think . . ."
Taylor: "Shh." 
Eleanor: "But our adventure . . ."
Eileen: "Zzzzzzz . . ."
Eleanor: "Fine, I'll go on my own."

Back at base camp, Eleanor is sad because her food is "too flavorful." Not "too spicy" or "too hot" or even "too strong." Just "too flavorful." How vague. She's getting some more machetes because she flung the last one in the jungle during their adventure to the temple.

Jonathan Lima sighting. The Lima bean lives! 

Eleanor chatted up the merchant for a while, and I wish I remembered her name because she shows up in the next chapter, but I don't. They made friends though with Eleanor's combo of super friendly and cheerful traits. She can charm just about anybody with just a hello. 

Armed with a new set of machetes, off Eleanor goes alone to the jungle while her sisters found their way back to the house to sleep for the night. 

Eleanor: "I don't see why Taylor was complaining about this. This is so fascinating, and I think I'm doing a great job. I'm even doing it in heels. I'm like the Ginger Rogers of archaeology!"

Eleanor may be getting a little ahead of herself, but she did really get into this part. For such a foofoo romantic, she was downright eager to get down in the dirt. Could she have found a new interest?

Eleanor: "I can even pee in bushes for the love of discovery!"

TMI. 

She came upon another temple finally and dove into exploring it. 

Maybe a little too readily. I love this sassy, fashionable skeleton frightening Eleanor so much. I just paused and laughed and laughed at this image. 

But it's okay! One 'cheerful introduction' later and they are finding common ground. 

Eleanor: "And this is Nova taking a nap. She already has 653 followers on Simstagram, you know. Most popular pup on the net, probably. An interwebs sensation."
Guardian: "Child, the most recent culture I've absorbed is this awesome turban that I took from the corpse of the last person who explored down here, so I have no idea what you're saying, but that is a very adorable tiny capybara or whatever that you're showing me on your strange picture device." 

 In case you were worried, I am Eleanor is still terrible at disarming traps.

 Really terrible.

No, seriously. We suck. I would say this would get better, but I played pretty extensively with World Adventures back in the day, so I know that really the problem is my impulsive style of play and terrible instincts. And yet Eleanor is the one that has to suffer the bone dust and pass outs.

Eleanor: *cough* 

She made it to the treasure finally, though. All by herself. That's pretty impressive, although it did actually take her a couple days while Taylor and Eileen presumably messed around back at the house. Their next adventure, she would be prepared to keep up with Taylor.

Venturing deeper into the jungle, Eleanor came across a gently flowing river to fish in, quiet and abandoned . . . except for the man-eating caiman, that is. 

Eleanor: "And on that note, I have a text from Mom. What?! We're all needed back home at once? Oh no! What happened?" 

Eleanor: "Mom, Mom! We just got back. Tay and Eileen are paying the cab. What happened? Mom? Grandpa? Did Dad die?"
Andres: "Unfortunately, that is not the case, my dear."
Celeste: "Yeah, Raf is still kicking in the garden, sweetie. It's much, much more important than that, and with the door open, your grandpa just thought he'd join the party."
Eleanor: "Uh . . ."
Andres: "It is tragic that these people only lived to advanced ages rather than infinity. Truly, this deserves my sadness."

Celeste: "Woo! Bound to life again. You're not getting away from us, suckers!"

Yeah, the emergency was that - OF ALL THE SIMS IN HERE - Marjorie, of course, was drifting away from the material world and I didn't know how long that would last. After putting up with her annoying ass for her whole life, I am NOT parting with her in death. Thus the girls had to come home so I could have Celeste make sure that all the ghosts are going nowhere fast.

Raf: "But I don't wanna weed! *whine whine whine*"

I would have traded this guy for Marjorie's spirit, but unfortunately that wasn't an option.

With their trip cut short, Eleanor abandoned her new love of archaeology and pursued her old love of . . . er, love. Chance Darling (fantastic name, btw) succumbed to her gift-giving and Eleanor fell back into the ruts of her old life.

And another first kiss down in the oh-so-romantic location of the playroom, with her little sister in attendance. Why do you have to be around so many of Eleanor's conquests, Taylor?

Taylor: "I dunno. I think I may have gotten cursed down in Selvadorada if this is what my future holds. I'm gonna go pick leaves somewhere else now."

And with that we arrive at the end of the chapter. I know this was kind of a short one, but I wanted the next chapter to end in a very particular place and it was too long to all be one chapter. That means that I should get around to the next one pretty soon, though, because I'm excited for what it and the one after it mean. I'm still trying to catch up with everything but, as you can tell from the arrival of Seasons in this chapter, I've started playing again too. Big things are coming for the Gregorys! Stay tuned, thanks for reading, and catch up at Boolprop! <3